Everything You Ever Needed To Understand This Guy Can Tell Us

 Hello Fellow Travelers!

I always thought I'd make a pretty good juror for a big case.  I'm impartial, detail-oriented and fastidious about following the rule of law.  I have infinite patience, I question everything.  I have been watching (with horrified fascination) the Derek Chauvin murder trial.  I own, nay, proclaim to all that I listen/research/fact-check and immerse myself into television.  Any kind, every type of TV, I watch, or have seen.  Between Covid and Cancer (and a healthy(?) dose of germaphobia) I'm in full lockdown mode. We watch a lot of TV.  Thanks to Covid, TV, has vastly improved.  There is something for everyone.  However, as a very selective viewer, I don't watch just anything.  Who am I kidding?  I watch almost everything! I have the attention span of a two year old.  I've discovered I'd be a terrible juror!  Dr. Martin Tobin, testified in the Chauvin Trial and he described, minute-by-minute, George Floyd's death in his lilting, Irish brogue.  

Attention was riveted.  That voice could tell  me my dog died, and I'd apologize to him.  Impartiality? Gone!  Listening to the "other side"?  Uh,  no thanks! I'm good.  Chauvin pressed the life out of that poor man.  Dr. Tobin's  testimony solidified the Prosecution's theory.  Fairly obvious what happened and why.  Defense? Not necessary.  Dr. Tobin told the jury (the world) all we needed to know in a charming Irish brogue.  This particular method of conveying horrific facts was as powerful as it was lyrical.  Dr.  Tobin could read the dictionary and impart gravitas and empathy to the text.  This charming, caring, Crosby-esque, pulmonologist was lethal as a Prosecution witness. I'm not an attorney but even I know enough about trial law (LA Law/Law & Order) to know you do not, under any circumstances, keep a sympathetic expert testifying a second longer than you have to.  This witness is an Irish truth-teller.  So, of course, the Defense-for-the-Defenseless cross-examined the wonderful doctor from Kilkenny.  Bad idea!  By the end of the good doctor's cross-examination I wanted to bring out my Wedgewood (TY, Rose) and make a "cup o' tea" for the gentleman and hear the rest of the story.  I wanted to watch that smug defense lawyer get hog-tied and pressed for 9 minutes until "the last breath left his body", on a dirty city street.  That was more than testimony, it was master storytelling!  I saw that man being ground into crushed,  under the full weight of Chauvin + 40#s.  His face under a wheel, I think he was dead before the EMTs came.

Chauvin's trial has brought American racism into focus - we have to deal with it now.  I believe this is the time of social change in this country.  Dr. Tobin made death "real" for the listener, told a sad story, drew a simple, clear picture everyone can see.  But choosing to see the uncomfortable truth is different than acting upon what we all saw.  

We will keep seeing seeing this until we do something about it.

Dr. Tobin has probably delivered terrible news to scores of people, but the way he explains death is comforting and informative!